Nine Processes of Devotional Service - an essential subject

The revealed scriptures mention nine means of attaining devotional service, of which the first and foremost is hearing from authority. The seed of devotion cannot sprout unless watered by the process of hearing and chanting. Mahārāja Parīkṣit engaged himself simply in hearing. He became perfect simply by hearing Bhāgavata from Śukadeva Gosvāmī. Śukadeva Gosvāmī also became perfect simply by reciting Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. Srila Prabhupada instructed his disciples to never let a moment go by without engaging in at least one of the nine devotional processes.

In a lecture in Japan in 1972, Srila Prabhupāda stated "There are nine different processes of bhakti-yoga. Any one of them you adopt, you become perfect, not that you have to adopt nine. If you can, it is very nice. So nine, eight, seven, six, five—if you adopt only one, you become... You don't anything. Simply hear Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam from a realized soul, you will become perfect. So śravaṇaṁ kīrtanaṁ viṣṇoḥ smaraṇaṁ pāda-sevanam, arcanaṁ vandanam. If you simply worship the Deity in regulated form, you become perfect. This is arcanam. Śravaṇam. So all the methods are there. You adopt any one of them; you become perfect. Simply you offer prayer—you become perfect. Vandanam. You simply work. You simply wash this temple and sweep this temple regularly with heart and soul—you become perfect. You don't require even to read. So dāsyam. Dāsyam means simply work as menial servant of Kṛṣṇa. Dāsyam. Sakhyam. Arjuna. Just like Arjuna. He made simply friendship with Kṛṣṇa. In friendship so many insulting words are used also."

Srila Prabhupada's books, lectures, conversations and letters offer a comprehensive presentation of this essential subject as seen in the Vaniquotes Nine Processes of Devotional Service category. An introduction from his books is given below in the following 8 quotes.

Vanipedia has now over 903 introductory articles compiled from Srila Prabhupada's books under the series titled Essential Subjects. All these articles can be seen in the Table of Content on the right side of this article and also here in this Umbrella Category.
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